According to the experts there would be an imminent shortage of tra fish at the end of the year because tra fish farmers are reducing. This has been warned to seafood processing workshops. The demand for tra fish increasing and farmers are looking for buyers for their oversize fish. But it is believe that the situation will be quite different at the end of the year.
Due to big losses most of the tra fish farmers have given up as their fish remain unsold and material prices remain low. There are lot of farmers in the Cuu Long River Delta who now decided to go for alternate living after they sell off their remaining fish. The Dong Thap Aquaculture Association explained that the area of ponds which have been left idle since the fish crop has reached 10-15 percent of total farming area of the province.
It is told that in Chau Thanh district alone, over 30 percent of households have left ponds idle. There are others who have narrowed farming scale in order to cut down expenses on feed and breeders. Phan Van Danh, Chairman of the An Giang Agriculture and Seafood Processing Association, informed that the province has the highest tra fish output in the Cuu Long River Delta. He also told that 20-30 percent of households do not breed fish anymore, and most of the remaining ones are small- and medium-sized.
Danh also informed that the fish output in An Giang province in the last months of the year will decrease by 20-30 percent. The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that in the first seven months of the year, tra exports brought the turnover of $750mil, and it is expected that the turnover will reach $1.2bil this year, an increase of $200mil over last year.
